Seize the Chinese moment

Timing may not be everything in diplomacy, but still matters a lot.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s forthcoming visit to India may seem to be coming at an inopportune moment. The two sides have only recently wound down a highly publicised stand-off in Ladakh. This is bound to figure prominently during the Premier’s trip. Our media can, of course, be relied on to flog the Chinese ‘incursion’ as an indicator of Beijing’s hostility. Also, doesn’t it fit with earlier actions by China, such as issuing of stapled visas to Indian residents of Jammu and Kashmir?

Even as we try to work out why the Chinese acted as they did in Ladakh, it is important not to lose sight of the big picture and of the small windows of opportunity that may be opening up. Seen from this standpoint, the Chinese Premier’s visit may not be as badly timed.

Why it needs us

For starters, Beijing’s decision to make India the first overseas destination for the new Premier is significant. It is worth noting that in terms of protocol, it was our Prime Minister’s turn to visit China. But Beijing insisted that Premier Li would like to visit India earlier. Clearly, it is a deliberate move intended to signal to India the importance that China attaches to this relationship. It is also interesting that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s maiden visit abroad was to Moscow.

These visits come at a time when China is on the back-foot in its eastern and southern peripheries. The tough line taken by Beijing on the maritime disputes in the East China and South China seas has driven a number of its neighbours into the arms of the US. American avowals about its ‘pivot’ to Asia not being aimed at anyone can hardly sound convincing to Beijing’s ears. It is in this context that China evidently wants to avoid being embroiled in problems on all fronts, while hoping to shore up its ties with a ‘swing state’ like India.

There have been indications of these over the past year or so. China has engaged India on such issues as Afghanistan and regional terrorism — topics that it had so far avoided owing to Pakistani sensitivities.

In short, China’s current willingness to reach out to India is conditioned by the larger strategic context confronting it.

Blowing hot and cold

This has always been the case.

The upswing in the relationship in the mid-1950s happened because India’s relations with the Soviet Union — China’s key patron at the time — had improved under Nikita Khrushchev. Similarly, the sharp downturn in India-China relations in the late 1950s, culminating in the war of 1962, was directly influenced by the Sino-Soviet split. After the war, China’s relations with India were frozen for several years. But on May Day 1970, Mao Zedong personally conveyed to the Indian charge d’affaires his desire for better ties with India. This dramatic gesture was influenced by the clash between Chinese and Soviet forces along the Ussuri River some months earlier, and aimed at ensuring that India did not join a Moscow-led anti-China front. The India-Pakistan crisis and war of 1971, however, delayed normalisation of ties. It was only in 1975 that Beijing and New Delhi exchanged ambassadors after fourteen years.

By the time Deng Xiaoping was firmly at the helm in 1977, the strategic situation confronting China had changed. The US had pulled out of Vietnam two years earlier, while the Soviet Union and Vietnam had stepped up their cooperation. To counteract this alliance, Beijing sought to pull India away from the Soviet Union. Deng, in fact, conveyed in 1979 to the visiting Indian foreign minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, China’s readiness for a comprehensive settlement of the disputed international boundary. Although the two sides differed on how to pursue such a settlement, talks did begin. More importantly, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing in 1988 — the first time in 34 years.

Post-Cold War

The collapse of Soviet Union was obviously welcome to Beijing, but it also led to a souring of China’s strategic bonhomie with the US, dating back to 1971. In America’s unipolar world moment, China was seen no longer as a ‘card’ to be played against another superpower, but a ‘threat’ to the US.

Later in the decade, India’s nuclear tests and its turn towards the US made Beijing to reassess its ties with India. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to China in 2003 led to an agreement on appointing special representatives to negotiate the boundary dispute. In April 2005, as US-India relations acquired a strategic dimension, Beijing, too, suggested a strategic partnership to India. China also signed an agreement on the political parameters and principles to settle the boundary dispute.

The Chinese were actually not particularly happy with this agreement, as it specifically mentioned, at India’s insistence, that the final version would take the interests of the settled populations into account. In effect, it meant Chinese claims to Arunachal Pradesh (or more narrowly to Tawang) being dropped. In the following years, the Chinese stepped back from this agreement. Visiting India in 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao publicly said that the boundary dispute would take a long time to settle.

The Chinese position appears to have shifted again now — in line with the changing strategic circumstances. Meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Durban earlier this year, President Xi Jinping called for an early settlement of the boundary dispute. Ahead of Premier Li’s visit, the Chinese have even suggested that the dispute should not be placed on the backburner and that the two sides should move on to the next stage of negotiations — a framework agreement.

So, there may be an opportunity now to make progress on the boundary negotiations. The final settlement will take longer, not the least because of the need to prepare domestic opinion in both countries. But as long as the current strategic conjuncture lasts, India is likely to find it easier to work with China on a range of issues, both political and economic.

It is in our own interest to seize this moment.

(The author is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and author of “1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh”, Permanent Black/Harvard University Press — forthcoming.)

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